Now, what I found the most interesting is that she had obviously stayed a very short time in both places. I gather they were more like tourist trips.

The comments following are another point of interest: once again, people are so damn different, sometimes it really does make you wonder how the same thing can viewed so differently by different folks.

However, a couple of commenters on there do note that her judgement and conclusions are skewed because she has not effectively lived in either place, therefore it's a bit pushing it with conclusions on which city is more livable etc.

So what do you think? How long do you need to have lived in a place to be able to evaluate it in a more or less balanced way? Or is the first impression enough, actually?

Well, actually, I met a few really intelligent Harvard graduates. One of them is our choir director :-) She certainly is a very smart, knowledgeable woman.

The young guys that I met through her, and who used to be part of one of the a-capella groups there, were super smart too. But perhaps the important factor in their case was that they all got into Harvard on their merit and were in fact getting scholarships from the university. They didn't come from filthy rich families that only had to pay their fees in order to be university students.

Sorry, June, I have not noticed Shanghai's atmosphere to be as international as Hong Kong's.

Honestly, to me Shanghai is still a very Chinese city, despite its history, and while it may be attractive to some who are visiting or those like yourself, Mandarin-speaking Chinese, for me it's not a great option.

Job is important when choosing a place to live and in that respect, if Shanghai works out better for you, so be it.
I do hope, though, that you manage to successfully return to Taipei. :-)